Tuesday, 20 June 2017

Free RPG Day Recap

For this year’s Free RPG Day, I ran
Michael Curtis’ excellent adventure, Gnole House, at 401 Games in Toronto. I
had scheduled the game to start at noon, but the Free RPG Day give-away started
in-store at 10 am, and almost everything was gone by the time I got there. Nonetheless,
the store had set aside not only enough copies of the Goodman Games Free RPG
Day DCC Quick-Starter to make sure that
every player at the table got one, but I was also given a 4th
Printing rulebook to give away. And I did.

(Dueling Grounds, which had been my
previous go-to for Free RPG Day events, moved to Peterborough this spring, thus
requiring me to find a new venue. I had done one event with Hairy Tarantula,
but their downtown location closed last year. Nonetheless, I was glad to
discover that 401 Games now has more than ample space for gaming, and actually
runs a games café with a great selection.)

Because of its location, I had
imagined that there would be a good turnout for Free RPG Day, and planned for a
maximum of 10 players. I got four, three of whom had never played Dungeon Crawl
Classics before, and one of whom was an old hand who had played in my Free RPG
Day game last year.

After a brief rundown of class
abilities, each player chose a single character out of the 14 that I had
pregenerated using the tools at Purple Sorcerer. We ended up with a dwarf, a
wizard, a halfling, and a thief. Because there was no cleric, I supplied two
doses of the balm of St. Cuthbert, which could heal 1 HD when applied.

Well, the fearless PCs found their
way to the high, narrow house in the wood, looking for both clues as to the
fate of that fearless seller of cordage and the emeralds that the gnoles were believed
to own. The thief went scouting around the house on his own, prompting the
watch-gnole to leave his hollow tree. But, unlike Nuth, the other PCs weren’t
willing to allow their companions to die so easily, and shouted a warning from
where they watched from the trees.

What followed was the gnole shaking
hands and miming human customs, urging his potential next meal into the house.

I have no desire to ruin the
adventure, so at this point I am just going to say that a great time was had by
all. One player remarked that, for all his years playing D&D, he had never
actually been in a “murder house” before. The dwarf turned out to be quite the
old-school tactician, using various furnishings to create alarms that would
notify the PCs if a secret door opened, checked various pieces of furniture to
see if they moved (the secret doors were fixed in place), and so on.

Even with the balm of St. Cuthbert,
the dwarf was dropped to 0 hp twice, the halfling once, and the thief once. Only
the wizard managed to escape without coming within an inch of death. The dwarf,
who had reduced his Luck to 0, only survived by rolling a 4!

Strangely, no “1”s were rolled
during the session, and if memory serves the only critical hits were a “16”
from the halfling and a backstab from the thief. I rolled dice in the open, as
is my custom, and had the players roll damage when they were hit by any
creature. This was fortuitous, as more than once absurdly low damage rolls
saved the lives of one or another PC, and if the player hadn’t rolled it they
probably wouldn’t have believed it.

It should probably be mentioned that
the kitchen was made more disturbing when the dwarf made a sandwich.

Good times. Good times.

They forgot the fellow in the tree and, when they tried to set fire to the adventure location, were nearly undone. But, no, the dice went their way yet again! At the end of the session, before handing out swag, I was able to tell the adventurers that they were the first, since Nuth, to ever return from the House of the Gnoles.

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